1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to textile sleeves, and more particularly to braided textile sleeves.
2. Related Art
It is known to protect elongate members in braided textile sleeves against a variety of environmental conditions and affects, or to just contain elongate members in textile sleeves for bundling and routing purposes. In the case of braided sleeves, the braided wall is commonly braided as a circumferentially continuous, seamless wall, sometimes referred to as a ‘closed’ wall. One known advantage of a closed, braided wall construction, in contrast to woven or knit wall constructions, is that the wall can be circumferentially expanded by pushing the opposite ends toward one another during installation to facilitate sliding the wall over an elongated member. However, a known problem with braided sleeves can arise during installation, particularly when trying to install the sleeve over relatively lengthy elongate members, such as wires and tubes, and/or about relatively sharp bends or corners. Commonly, when confronted with lengthy elongate members and sharp bends, the sleeves tend to flatten on themselves and kink, particularly within the region of a bend, thereby causing the material of the sleeve to bunch-up axially on itself, and thus, the sleeve ceases to continue along the length of the elongate member, thereby complicating the installation process.